


we'll see you when we get there

by sidnihoudini



Category: Good Charlotte, Hedley
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-12
Updated: 2010-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:24:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next morning Joel’s picking him up in an Escalade with black on black rims. </p><p>“Let’s get some food,”  Joel says.  Benji knows that, in their world, food really means sex.</p><p>He shrugs, and clips his seatbelt in. </p><p>Except then Joel finds out Nicole’s gone into labor three months early when he’s in the middle of a blow job.</p><p>Benji’s on a flight back to Vancouver that night, forgotten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll see you when we get there

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this three years ago, when Benji was still with Sophie Monk and Nicole was pregnant with Harlow, and, for a long while, it was doomed to non-existence on my external hard drive despite the fact that I still glanced at it and sometimes wrote little bits for it every now and then.

Benji was balls deep when he realized that fucking his brother probably wasn’t the most honest thing he could be doing with his life. 

 

.

 

_September_

They’re in Australia for maybe the last time on promo, because the latest record hasn’t been doing as well as anyone thought it could have, and sure he hadn’t exactly had high hopes, but, fuck. He’d at least expected it to be gold by now. Turns out, eight months later and not even close. Deano is already looking for a back up plan, Benji knows it, they’re both just too nice to say anything.

“I’m going to dinner,” He announces, poking his head into their curtain of a dressing room. Yeah, new addition to this tour, no catering. Too expensive, apparently, because the price on a box of cheese doodles and a couple two liters of Pepsi are constantly going up these days. He taps his car keys against the frame of the door. “Anyone coming?”

Paul’s involved with his freaky ass game, a DS console he’s started taking everywhere. He even has a little carrying pouch he got from a Japanese vendor last time they were in Osaka. Billy’s hidden somewhere in the background, kinda like he always has been, even when they were eighteen and just hanging around in one Maryland basement or another. 

The only one who looks up is Joel, even though he’s texting either Nicole or his latest gay conquest on the side, one or the other. Usually he types faster for Brandon.

“Give me a sec,” He says, raising his eyebrows. He adjusts the front of his pants.

Yeah. Probably just Brandon.

Benji looks at him for a second, this carefully inexplicable thing that he shares with Joel, and Joel only, then nods. “Yeah. I’ll be in the car.”

 

.

 

He’s flipping through the channels on satellite radio when Joel cranks the passenger side door open and climbs up into the car, a half smile on his face and a hat tugged low down over his eyes. Then Benji’s involved in trying to flatten out a particularly deep crease in his jeans, but he still looks up with Joel slams the door closed and starts digging around for his seat belt. His jacket’s so big it hangs over the edges of the chair.

“What,” Benji says, reaching down to start the ignition. “What’d you do?”

Joel bursts into this little fit of kindergarten laughter and shakes his head, swears nothing Benj, seriously, nothing, it’s just – when he says it, Benji’s hand drops from the ignition, he stares wide-eyed across the SUV. Joel looks back at him, the same happy little smile on his face that he’s had at every major milestone in their lives. Eyes closing, pausing, opening, slowly, Benji shakes his had and reaches up to adjust the rear view mirror.

He can’t believe Joel’s marrying her.

 

.

 

His whole life, there have only been three people Benji’s ever really loved.

Joel. Obvious. So obvious that he shouldn’t even really be included. The only person he’d ever really do anything for – literally, anything – give, take, fuck, fight, pretend, whatever. He’d do it, he wouldn’t even ask why.

There had been Rin. She was cute and kinda looked like a boy anyway, so yeah, Benji had loved her. It was platonic at best, and that’s why she had left him eventually, cause he’d cuddle with the dog and never her. But he’d loved her, in his own round about way. 

Max was the third person, who Benji had fucked until they’d both fucked it up. Max was a good guy, into tattoos and cars and damn, Benji’d still bang him now but they’d both smartened up after the last fist fight, and anyway, things turned out to be way more complicated than they were when they were both nineteen and horny. But Max, he’d loved Max like a brother. Kind of. Sort of. He had a weird track record in the brotherly love department.

Cause, uh, to be honest, through the Rins and Maxes and even Sophies, Benji’d always found that spare hotel room, the space between here and there to fuck Joel, satisfy them both. Tried, stopped, started, tried and stopped again, but they’d always come back to each other.

Benji knows that there will never be another Joel.

 

.

 

They’re trying to find a cheap place to buy dinner, well Benji is at least, Joel’s slumped down in his seat, legs sprawled as he texts whoever the fuck, either

_baby im gona fuk u so hard;_

or, alteratively,

_hows the baby can u feel it kick?_

Benji presses too hard on the brake when some bitch with an up do tries to cut him off, which is exactly when Joel looks up from the tiny screen on his blackberry and asks, “How’s Sophie doing?”

He’s still gritting his back teeth together from the chick in the Audi when he reaches over to flip the heat off. It’s too warm all of a sudden.

“Wonderful,” He lies. The last time they talked, they were fighting. Two weeks ago. Outside of a Starbucks. Which he still has to give Mark shit for setting up. “We’re both wonderful.”

Joel makes some kind of non-committal noise, his favorite kind, and tosses his phone up into the air, catches it. “They have good room service at the Marriott. I saw one ten minutes ago.”

Fingers wrapped tight around the steering wheel, Benji finally loosens up his grip, and glances over.

“Okay,” He whispers, a little smile already slipping around his mouth.

Okay.

 

.

 

Joel’s the king of hotel suites. He’s got a plan, a game plan, and manages to make out with an extra bag full of loot every time. Shampoo, conditioner, salt, sugar, candle sticks, whatever he can find. When he’s feeling particularly rebellious, sometimes he’ll even take a towel or piece of cutlery.

While Joel does this, Benji lays spread-eagled in the huge bed – they sprung for a master suite – and flips through the channels on TV. Most of them are pay to watch, but CNN and BBC1 are always the same, especially in Europe.

“Did we come here so you can do your Christmas shopping,” Benji calls, scratching his stomach. He regrets some of the crap he’s gotten inked into his skin, but it’s too late to take back now. “Or did we come here to fuck?”

Joel’s in the doorway a half a minute later, slightly breathless, flushed in the way that he is when he steals. Always has had sticky fingers, ever since middle school and they’d go to 7-11 to lift candy and condoms. 

“Well.” Joel raises his eyebrows and starts unbuckling his belt. Benji knows he’s been hard since he first started his text war with Brandon this morning. “Maybe if you say please.”

Benji rolls his eyes and turns the TV off. “Maybe you should get over yourself.”

He’s a big American celebrity now, what with the fucking Hollywood’s best, and he’s got the fucking attitude to prove it.

“Say please,” He says again, walking towards the bed.

Benji flips him off, and, an hour later, is out of breath and sweating when he thinks:

Maybe it didn’t have to be this way. Things maybe could have been different. Just a little, and I would have been really happy.

Really happy.

 

.

 

They tour through the states for the last two weeks of September. It’s necessity but completely unnecessary: anyone who was going to buy their album would have already. On September 27th, the label decides that they don’t need another studio album, and like that, their contract is done.

All of them, stuck in middle America, trying to coax nineteen year old girls who aren’t so gullible anymore into buying their record.

“It’s not that bad,” Billy tells him, in-between shows at Glendale. A fucking mall, for Christ’s sake. They’re trying to tune their guitars, but the acoustics outside of Best Buy really could be better. “I mean, it could be worse.”

Benji looks out into the guts of the mall, wearily eyeing the few people still milling around. Women pulling their kids around by the arm, telling them no, they can’t have whatever it is they want, wait ‘til Christmas, see what Santa brings you.

“How could it be worse?” Benji doesn’t mean to sound as miserable as he knows he does.

This is not what his sixteen year old self would have wanted.

“We could be...” Billy trails off, and lets his fingers ghost over the fret board. He carefully looks off into space, thinks about it for a second, and then turns back to Benji. “We could be wearing matching outfits.”

The awkward laughter Benji manages isn’t supposed to sound as strained as it does. 

Really.

 

.

 

The worst part about everything is that the other guys are happy with how everything turned out. Joel’s got his million dollar bank account, his status in L.A. and the kid he’s always wanted since _they_ were kids, despite having a craving for dick every now and then. The other guys never really strived for anything, mostly followed Benji around because they were in the contract, too.

Benji wanted to have a legacy, some kind of record label that wasn’t a joke, a line of guitars that didn’t stop selling in 2003. He wanted to have his songs in fucking Guitar Hero IV, damnit, he wanted a lot of things.

The last ditch effort the label gives them is Canada. Hey, if you can make it there, maybe the European market would be a bit easier to crack again, management said, fucking Mark and his big ideas. Benji phones Sophie from LAX and tells her everything is going fine, baby, don’t be worried we haven’t seen each other in months. The engagement is still on. 

Twelve hours later he’s in Toronto, holding his own luggage and waiting for a taxi to take him downtown.

 

.

 

It’s during the first radio interview they do that Benji meets him. Actually, Benji mostly watches from the side lines, smiling kind of, appalled that a kid like this would be allowed to talk the way he does, act the way he acts.

They do some cheesy photos for the station’s website, Benji poses beside him, Joel on the other side, a Madden twin sandwich. Afterward they shake hands, introduce themselves through static-y laughter, cause – awkward – Benji has no idea who he is.

“Jacob.” He’s got some really ugly teeth and a stunning ensemble of Daisy Duke shorts and a gym headband, but it’s ugly in an enamoring way and Benji would love to see him live. “When you came to Vancouver with Sum 41 and they cancelled I was so pissed, man,” He laughs, reaching for Joel’s hand to shake it in the same way. He looks back at Benji. “I liked the acoustic you did, though. I don’t remember what it was, but it was good.”

Benji remembers it, the song he wrote for Rin, at the time. She had laughed when she’d first heard it. She had always been kind of a bitch. A quiet one, but a bitch all the same.

“Thanks,” Benji doesn’t know what else to say.

The photographer taps them on the shoulder. “We want one with Jacob only,” He tells them.

Yeah. Awkward.

 

.

 

Benji’s picking through the half assed buffet after their interview. He’s also debating on pocketing some of the wrapped stuff for later, cause honestly, he doesn’t feel like a ding dong now, but who knows about tonight.

He’s almost reasoned himself into thinking it’d be a decent idea when something loud and terrible whirlwinds into the room, making the door slam back on its hinges, laughter all of a sudden, everywhere.

“And then this idiot gets capped in the face!” Someone’s shouting, Benji turns around cause he’s nosy and kinda interested. It’s one of the guys from the other band the station interviewed, shaggy hair and a sketchy expression. “And I said – Jake, fuck off – ”

They get into some kind of tussle, and Benji recognizes the guy with them as one of the DJs, but he’s laughing too, stepping to the side while they go at each other, shoving faces and trying to bend each others arms backwards.

The ding dong is entirely forgotten by the time everyone comes up for air.

“Oh hey man, I didn’t even see you standing there,” The one guy says, pushing his hair back from his face, breathing hard.

Jacob tackles him again from the side and they leave again, a heaving mass of arms and legs and smiles and Benji hasn’t seen someone so alive in years.

 

.

 

\-- they meet for real about fifteen minutes later. Their managers went to business school or something ridiculous like that, so they do the whole intro thing, Benji meets them all (Jacob, this guy who looks like it wouldn’t be far off if he started selling illegal fireworks out of the back of his car, this guy, Tom maybe, who laughs a lot, and the last guy... blond hair, cute face, completely forgettable) and they all meet Joel, Paul, Billy, Dean, the entire crew. 

Benji shakes Jacob’s hand like he means it, and it’s a good handshake, Benji’s almost impressed.

“My sister used to wear her makeup like yours,” Jacob motions to his face, two streaks down his cheeks, and in one suddenly hot and uncomfortable moment, Benji feels entirely _uncool_. His grin breaks into laughter, he glances at one of the guys in his band and shares this secret smile that Benji used to share with Chris, Tony, all the people he doesn’t know anymore. “It was pretty terrifying, actually.”

Benji’s about to say something, hopefully endearing, when Jacob claps him on the back and adds, “Don’t worry dude, you totally pulled it off.”

Instead of sticking to the plan and saying something smart, all he manages is, “Hey. Thanks.”

So there’s that. And then --

 

.

 

They’re shipped off to Calgary next, this nowhere place that Benji only remembers for its empty fields and spaces, completely burdening in the scarcity of it all. They play a show at the biggest venue in town, which only holds a handful of the people they would’ve played for three, four years ago.

When he and Joel go looking for food after the show, Benji catches a ripped poster staple gunned to a telephone pole: Hedley, October 13th. Same venue they’d played an hour ago, maybe less.

Benji eyes the toothy smile, the dark hair, the expression, and completely disregards the rest.

This is the night that something in his stomach begins to change.

 

.

 

_October_

 

“This city sucks,” Joel complains, kicking a tiny rock alongside of the breakwater they’re standing on.

It’s cold, but it’s fall. It’s overcast, but, it’s October. It’s salty, but it’s the ocean.

“I don’t mind it,” Benji shrugs.

They’re doing a photoshoot for _Beyond Robson_. Benji’s never heard of it, neither had Mark, but press is press nowadays, even if it’s not legit.

“I like L.A.,” Joel bitches, crouching down against the concrete. The bald spot on his head is getting bigger. “At least it’s sunny there.”

Benji stares out over the water, oblivious to the photographer snapping frame by frames. 

Secretly, he thinks it’s beautiful here.

 

.

 

It’s two weeks later when the record label decides they’re not going to fund the promo tour any longer. It’s been a year, they say, it’s been a year and you’ve still only moved 12,000 units.

Benji knows 12,000 units is nothing to be proud of anymore.

Everyone else is kinda mad about it, they’ve all worked their asses off for years, and maybe they had successes but fuck, what’s success when you don’t have it anymore? Two days after Mark tells them the funding’s gone, everyone fucks off. Joel goes back to Los Angeles, his new family. Billy goes back to Linzi and his art. Paul goes back to his apartment, cigarettes, and keyboard. Dean’s already secured a new contract with an up and coming New York band; he leaves to record.

Benji sticks around in Vancouver. He doesn’t know why, but for some reason, it feels important.

Like maybe something could change if he does.

 

.

 

There are new condos and apartments going up all over Vancouver, and it isn’t hard for Benji to choose one and drop a good amount of money on it. He’s spent money before, cars, jewelry, but he isn’t stupid. He’s got enough left if he makes it stretch.

He gets Joel to sell his SUV in L.A. and transfer the money so Benji can buy a new one in the city. Which he does, easily. Nothing up here seems to be a hard decision, in fact, it’s almost easy.

After a couple calls he’s even got cable and the internet, and he doesn’t even think about the house full of possessions he’s left almost thirty years away, the things he’s worked forever to get, everything that seemed pretty important when he was a teenager.

It’s a Monday morning when he looks in the bathroom mirror and doesn’t even regret the PUNX across his stomach all that much.

 

.

 

The following Thursday he’s got MuchMusic on in the background when he hears something familiar. Not Joel familiar, not Rancid or MXPX or even The Casualties familiar. Just... a voice he’s heard before, maybe once or twice.

Jacob’s on the screen, some heavily saturated video that has him running around with wild eyes and tight pants.

Benji smiles without even thinking about it.

 

.

 

_November_

 

He’s got a coffee in one hand, a bunch of shopping bags in the other, and a pile of CDs balanced somewhere in-between. There are the usual suspects, some favorites that he left behind but hasn’t wanted enough to go back to yet; some new junk he’s never heard of, but the CDs are on the TOP CANADIAN BANDS wall, so on a whim he decides to give them a listen.

When he passes by the G tab in the alphabetized section, his fingers ghost over the GOOD CHARLOTTE place card sitting there. The only title the store carries is The Young and the Hopeless. Benji picks it up for no reason, and flips the CD over. His own face stares back at him, black eyes, black hair – harsh. That’s what he was, brash and trying to make up for the things he’d never had.

Scraping his tongue along the rough part of his back teeth, he buries it behind a copy of Goldfrapp’s latest release. Another band that charted at least forty five places above them on Billboard.

He wanders around the store for quite a while, picking through old releases, debating catching up on all the entertainment he’s missed since becoming involved in the industry. Arrested Development was supposed to be good, they have all the seasons on sale for twenty bucks each. He knows there are some movies he never got around to seeing, too, maybe he’d just have to open a Blockbuster account.

When he gets to the front counter he sets his little stack of CDs down, and doesn’t even think about it when the guy ringing his purchases through tosses a couple of free, promo only discs into the bag.

“Thanks,” Benji smiles, really, and loops the bag around his wrist.

At this rate, he might even have to stop smoking.

 

.

 

Later that night, after he’s ordered himself a large pizza and devoured half of it without thinking twice, he pokes through his shopping bags, laying out the hoodies he bought from PD’s hot shop, unwrapping all of his CDs, taking off the annoying wrap that clings to his hands and the front of his shirt.

He likes free things, he always has, so he pays special attention to the promo discs that he snagged. A sampler of a new Victory Records band, a top 20 selection, a three disc track from some band called Hedley. It isn’t until he flips over the logo-only front of the CD that he realizes maybe this is one of those things he should pay attention to.

Jacob’s face is on the back, grinning and sandwiched in-between three other guys. Benji sucks the inside of his cheek and flips it back over to read the front cover. _Hedley. Famous Last Words Sampler. HMV Exclusive. Check out more online at hedleyonline.com. Includes She’s So Sorry and For The Nights I Can’t Remember._

Canadians know how to market Canadian bands, Benji assumes. Maybe that’s where they’d been fucking up all along.

He plays it on his computer, some kind of special feature video pops up and he has no idea how to make it go away so he has no choice but to watch it. It’s behind the scenes, typical band stuff, but it’s amusing. It’s watchable.

Maybe, if it ever came up, he could even be friends with this Jacob guy.

 

.

 

Joel calls him the next day, says he’ll meet him at L.A.X. in the morning cause Brandon bailed on him and Nicole is too far along to fly internationally, which Benji knows is absolute crap, but. It’s tempting. Until he looks at the piles of junk scattered around his place, building up mini nests of crap he will maybe need someday, and thinks, um, maybe I’ll be okay here, instead.

“You come to Vancouver,” He says, instead of something reasonable.

As usual, Joel doesn’t budge even a little bit. “Not gonna happen.” He’s chewing on something.

Benji frowns and switches the phone from one ear to the other. “I’m busy,” He lies.

“Doing what?” Joel’s always called him on his bullshit. Usually.

He flicks the light on in his bathroom, but it’s only two in the afternoon and the sun’s still out. He turns it off, and glances at himself in the mirror.

“I’m just busy,” He repeats, leaning against the door frame. Joel grumbles something, and then he’s chewing again.

“You’re a real bitch lately, Benj,” He concedes, the sound of a fork hitting glass. “Whatever.”

Then Benji’s got dead air and maybe going to L.A. for a couple of days wouldn’t be so bad.

 

.

 

The next morning Joel’s picking him up in an Escalade with black on black rims. 

“Let’s get some food,” Joel says. Benji knows that, in their world, food really means sex.

He shrugs, and clips his seatbelt in. 

Except then Joel finds out Nicole’s gone into labor three months early when he’s in the middle of a blow job.

Benji’s on a flight back to Vancouver that night, forgotten.

 

.

 

There’s this park by Benji’s apartment complex that’s weighed down with orange leaved trees and faded wooden benches. The area is just dead enough to warrant being a fantastic place to chain smoke in, so he does, a brisk walk to Macs and back and he’s got two packs of lights. And it’s not that he has a death wish, it’s just that maybe he wants to take a couple years off in one fell swoop, so that’s what he does while he sits there, on one of the benches, like an old man trying to feed a swarm of seagulls. Except, you know, instead of bread crumbs he’s throwing cigarette butts, and instead of playing nice with the birds, every time one of those little bitches comes near him he tries to scare it away.

So he’s in the middle of swearing at a particularly feisty seagull who’s desperate to get its beak around his only functioning lighter that he realizes someone is standing right beside him, blocking the last little bit of sun stripping its way across the ground and onto Benji’s thigh.

Okay, so. Even though he kinda feels like a douche for doing it, he still wears his sunglasses whenever – literally, whenever. There are three times he takes off his glasses: when he’s getting into the shower, when he’s getting out of the shower, and when he’s sleeping. That’s why he’s sitting in a shaded park in the middle of November, still wearing black on black Fendi sunglasses – because he is neither in the shower or getting into bed. He thinks this should be a warning sign to anyone wanting to approach him for friendly conversation: I am clearly insane or from Los Angeles, do not talk to me.

The person currently blocking his light and scaring all the birds away has, apparently, not gotten this memo.

“Yeah, it is you,” The guy says, stooping down to brace his hands flat against the tops of his knee caps. He’s breathing heavy, heavier than usual, and wearing an iPod around the thickest part of his arm. It’s kinda gay. “I knew it.”

Benji squints out of habit and suddenly feels entirely uncomfortable. Jacob. He knows it immediately. His stomach even knows it, flip flopping like he just ate a bad batch of chinese food.

“Uh,” He says, pausing to lick his lips, and in that half second of silence his cigarette burns right down to the edges of his fingers. Swearing quietly, despite Jacob being close enough to hear him either way, he swings his hand around and flicks the butt against the ground.

When he looks up, still pissed at his gently singed hand, Jacob is grinning back down at him, like he’s giving Benji the benefit of the doubt.

“Smoking’s bad for you,” He jokes, then, probably realizing that it wasn’t all that funny, or even endearing – Benji is sick of lung cancer jokes and ‘did you know that cigarettes have literally one trillion types of rat poison in them?’ factoids – he back tracks and asks, “You okay?”

Benji nods and gingerly sucks on the burnt edge of his finger. “Wonderful.”

“Okay. Well.” He starts untangling the cord on his iPod as he shifts his weight from foot to foot, front to back, hip popping out during one particularly feisty stance. He looks back down at Benji, brown eyes hot, almost. “I jogged by twice, thinking it was you, so I pretty much just decided to find out for sure. For a second I thought you were some homeless guy I always see on Robson. But you weren’t. So.”

Frowning, Benji realizes that he doesn’t know what else to say. He nods and tries not to look too bewildered. “Okay.”

“Yeah, well,” Jacob nods and reaches to pop the ear buds back into his ears again. “It’s been a slice, but...” He gestures to the rest of the park laying behind him, like it’s waiting.

Benji nods, muttering off something that dangerously sounds like an agreeable ‘yeah, yeah, sure,’ and gestures in the same way. Reaches down to pat his cigarettes out again, and damnit all to hell if that fucking bird’s stolen his lighter in the few seconds he wasn’t on his game.

“See ya,” Jacob finally says, turning around on one foot, starting to jog back the same way he came.

His back is super muscle-y. Benji can see his shoulders through the thin t-shirt fabric.

So Jacob gets about fifteen, sixteen paces away before he slows, stops, and then turns back around. He walks back, picking at the lobe of his ear the entire time, Benji watches him.

“This is pretty stupid.” He sits down on the bench beside Benji, and steals one of his cigarettes. Benji doesn’t even complain when he wraps his fingers around the lighter, which looks too short for his fingers, and snatches it. “I told my wife about you, you know.”

Well. There’s one thing Benji wasn’t expecting to hear.

“Your wife,” He repeats, because he feels as though it’s one of those things that bears repeating. Jacob nods and inhales, a good half inch of the cigarette paper burns away quickly. “Okay.” Benji smoothes the palm of his hand over the thigh of his jeans. “I thought you were...”

Jacob holds his left hand out, cigarette balanced between his middle and forefinger. On his ring finger there is, predictably, a gold band.

“Four years. Five years. Almost four and a half years.” His hand is shaking.

Benji knows his eyes are wide cause they’re starting to dry out from all the crap twirling around in the air, but he also has his sunglasses on, so he’s pretty confident Jacob can’t see the pure shock painted across his face. Or maybe he can and Benji is just an idiot with an if you can’t see me, I can’t see you complex. Benji fidgets, and chews on the skin on the side of his finger nail. He never thought about that before.

He pauses, licks his lips, tries to figure out if this is his business. Technically he isn’t, but he’s interested enough. “And how long have you known you were a fag?”

Jacob looks at him carefully, quietly, like he’s deciding.

And then, a half-smile, not rare, but then another cigarette drag, very rare, like he’s good – really good – at sucking on things.

“Since I was ten,” He answers.

Benji smiles (also rare, index 2), soft laughter, and shakes his head.

 

.

 

They trade cell numbers (“Don’t call my home number,” Jacob tells him, “But I’ll give it to you just in case...”) and even though Jacob’s going on tour in a week – they’ve decided to release a special edition of their latest CD, cause Canada is in the bag – Benji swears up and down that he won’t lose it.

“Not kidding,” Jacob smiles, scribbling the digits out on a little scrap of paper, a receipt maybe. “This is a one time deal. Lose it, and like a figment of your imagination, I’ll be gone.”

Benji nods and rolls his eyes and says, honestly. After they share goodbyes (smiles and handshakes), Benji loses the piece of paper. It’s just a lucky thing for him that he copied it along the sole of his shoe at the park before he left, else he really would be fucked.

 

.

 

Joel names the kid Jacob, which is kind of funny, but also really uncomfortable.

“Joel, c’mon, man. There are a ton of other names in the bible,” Benji tries, reasoning as he shaves one handed, watching himself backwards in the mirror. He almost cuts himself twice, but. “Peter. Christopher. Fucking... Sam.”

In the background, Benji can hear the kid crying and someone else bitching; Benji doesn’t keep dibs on the people Joel’s been hanging around lately, which is new. Joel sounds petulant and overtired. “I like Jacob, Benj.”

Frowning into the mirror, Benji thinks of bad teeth and lost phone numbers. He thinks he has a cavity coming. “Why you gotta do the biblical thing, anyway?”

“Tradition,” Joel tells him. Which is total crap.

Benji’s about to make another point when his cellphone beeps and vibrates across the counter. “Hold on,” He tells Joel, not elaborating or even making up a decent excuse before he puts him on hold and reaches for the cell.

“Yeah.” The only people who phone Benji lately are Joel, his mom, Josh, Sarah, and sometimes Sophie, and this is an appropriate greeting for all five of them. Except his mom, who generally likes to be greeted with a simple ‘hello,’ but he’s running a pretty good average so far.

A little snort of laughter, like it’s an eight year old prank calling him. “What’s going on?” Then, without waiting for an answer or even pretending to be courteous, he cuts himself off with, “Hey, how do you feel about getting a beverage with me... tonight, perhaps.”

“Alcoholic.” He tips his head back so he can shave the spot on his neck, right underneath his chin.

Jacob makes a disappointed noise, and shuffles around which of course makes the reception crap out. “You’re not one of those if I can’t have fun, nobody else can have fun either alcoholics, are you?”

“Not yet.” Benji’s actually laughing without meaning to. “You’re not one of those I’ll slip vodka into your apple juice so we can be drunk idiots together kind of drunk idiot, are you?”

Snorting, Jacob drinks something (probably beer) and switches ears. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Fair enough.” Benji taps his razor against the edge of the sink. “How do you feel about food?”

Secretly, Jacob’s mouth starts watering. He hasn’t eaten anything since those three pop tarts this morning. Which was well over four hours ago.

“The Noodle Box?”

Benji frowns at himself in the mirror. “I have no idea what that is.”

“Oh man,” Jacob sounds elated. “You have no idea what you’re in store for, then.”

Laughing, not really knowing whether he should or not, Benji reaches for his towel to wipe all the remaining streaks of shaving cream off of his face. “Ten?”

“Ten what?” Jacob is clearly still caught up in The Noodle Box.

Benji laughs and tosses the towel onto the counter, half of it lands in the still half filled sink, the other covers up the handset he was talking to Joel on. Whoops.

“O’clock,” He replies, snagging the phone, punching the light switch off. It’s a thing.

Jacob sounds fantastically exited. “You’re on, dude.”

 

.

 

Joel’s gone by the time Benji flips back over to the home line. Instead of calling back or even leaving a voicemail, Benji checks the clock.

It’s only eleven a.m.

 

.

 

The Noodle Box turns out to be an elusive place to eat, tucked away in this back alley in Chinatown, between a toy shop and grocery store. Benji walks by it three times, the only reason he realizes it’s there is because he finds Jacob bumming around outside, leaning against the dirty brick wall with his hands in his jean pockets, smirk on his face.

“How’s it going,” He calls, pushing away from the wall with his hip. Benji looks up, and fixes his sunglasses. It’s actually a lot colder than he assumed it would be, the thin v-neck and jeans really isn’t doing shit to block the ice cold wind.

With this on his mind, Benji can’t find anything better to say than, “I’m freezing, actually.”

“No kidding, it’s like minus a hundred out,” Jacob laughs, taking another step away from the wall. He’s wearing this worn jean jacket, it’s lined with something thick and fluffy, and it looks indefinitely warm. Benji sticks his hands in his pockets. “C’mon, let’s go inside.”

Benji nods, and follows Jacob through the narrow little entrance door.

 

.

 

Some guy with a chinese accent is singing Hey Jude at the half assed karaoke machine set up beside the cook’s counter, and Benji hasn’t laughed this hard in a long time, but then again he’s never heard Country Rose sung by an Asian guy, either. They’re tucked away at this little table in the back corner, it’s kinda dusty and lined with cheap paper lanterns and ugly rice paper scrolls, but it’s warm and comfortable and the waitress immediately takes a liking to them both.

“Hey,” Jacob flags her down, she’s tiny and actually reminds Benji of Rin a lot. In a non bitch way. She wanders over to their table, flattening down the little white apron she’s wearing around her middle, and offers a smile. “Can we get some more of this tea stuff?” She motions to the hot white tea pot sitting in the middle of their table, Benji hasn’t had any yet cause Jacob drank it all. “Please? Yeah?”

She nods, picks up the tea pot, and quietly touches Benji on the shoulder before heading back to the kitchen.

“So you come here often?” Benji asks, stabbing a piece of chicken with his chop stick. They don’t have any forks here, not even plastic ones, which sucks cause he has dick all patience to dink around trying to eat the rice with two sticks. “Everyone seems to know you.”

Jacob shrugs and gulps down half of his water. When he manages to talk his face is all screwed up like he swallowed wrong. “I guess so, I mean...” He trails off and picks something out of his front tooth. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Convincing,” Benji smirks, glancing across the table at Jacob, quickly back down to his food.

Half-smiling, Jacob toys around with the napkin with one hand, folds it against the table and wrinkles it up until it’s almost in shreds.

“I’m convincing sometimes,” He finally says, still with that maybe smile on his face. Benji snorts and almost chokes on his rice. Which he’s unconfidently eating at a rate of about four grains at a time. 

Coughing, definitely awkward in all of it’s beautiful glory, he covers his mouth with the back of his hand, coughs again until his eyes are starting to water, and then reaches for his glass. Which is empty except for a bunch of unmelted ice cubes.

Jacob quietly pushes his across the table, not smiling obviously, but Benji knows there’s a smirk hidden under there somewhere.

“Thanks,” He manages, watery-eyed, before stealing a few long gulps.

Glancing up at the waitress when she brings their tea pot back, Jacob looks down at Benji, back at the girl, and then to Benji again.

“No problem,” He says, softly, like it’s really only between the two of them.

By the time Benji looks up again, the waitress is back in the kitchen, speaking quietly with one of the cooks.

 

.

 

Two things happen just after eleven. 

First of all, the karaoke machine is shut off, and tinned music filters through out the whole restaurant, more cheap song covers, the kind made to sound romantic even when it’s really not supposed to be that way at all. Secondly, Joel calls, and of all the things Benji is expecting to happen in the middle of waiting for their fortune cookies and bill, a call from Joel is the last.

“Aw crap,” He smiles, leftovers from when he was laughing at the story that Jacob was in the middle of. Jake offers a half assed, not really all that interested ‘what?’, and Benji knows it. He fingers the screen and picks the cell up off the table. “Aw nothing, just my brother. Mind if I grab it?”

Jacob shakes his head and waves his head, so Benji smiles and gets up off the chair, flips the phone open and ducks into the dark corner right outside of the bathrooms and employee only door.

“What’s up?” He asks, leaning one shoulder against the wall, still facing the belly of the restaurant.

A long, drawn out yawn, exhausted, and then, “Benj, talk me into not catching the next plane out of here.”

“Stop being a dick,” Benji says, easily, watching the last table other than theirs. They’re a couple, probably newly engaged, holding hands over the table and making googly eyes at each other through the thin light. 

Joel yawns again. “I know. But, seriously. It’s, like, I can’t cope, Benj.”

“Sure you can.” Benji stifles a yawn against his hand – it’s just habit, a mere reaction from hearing Joel’s – and glances over at Jacob. His eyes are watering a bit from the way he stretched his jaw too wide, but he can just focus in on Jacob flipping through his own cell, probably checking text messages and voicemails and all the ignored warnings he got during their hour long meal. “What’s going on, anyways?”

Crappy reception, Joel’s either in his car or a basement. “Nothing. Nicole’s just driving me crazy.”

“What’s new.” That wasn’t very nice. “Just kidding.” That’s better.

Joel makes a little noise that sounds a lot like ‘whatever Benj,’ and then says, “I miss you, I guess, like. I don’t know. We haven’t seen each other in a while.”

“I know, but you’re doing the dad thing, and I,” Benji pauses, he doesn’t know where he’s going with this. “You know I’m not good at that kid stuff.”

Snorting, Joel hits a button on the phone by accident. It sounds a lot like a 3. “Yeah, I’m starting to find out I’m not that good either. It won’t stop crying, Benj.”

“It’s a baby, that’s all they do.” Benji eyes Jacob some more, his phone’s away, he’s looking around. Benji means to look away, but then he doesn’t and they accidentally look right at each other. He manages a little smile, a ‘sorry,’ and gets a smile and ‘it’s okay’ in return. Benji motions with his hand like Joel’s talking his ear off, which would probably make Joel punch him in the nose if he was here to see it, but it makes Jake laugh and nod again so it’s kind of a free trade off.

Joel yawns again. “I’ve got a headache, damn.” He sounds so miserable, it hurts.

“Look, seriously.” Benji’s got his no-nonsense voice on now, he means it. “Get a couple Tylenols, pop em with a glass of water, and conk out. Hand the kid off to the maid or something, Joel, you’ve got to take care of yourself.”

Sounding petulant, and he’s probably right about this, Joel says, “It doesn’t work like that, Benj.”

“Look,” Benji sighs and leans against the wall. He pinches the bridge of his nose; he’s pretty sure he’s getting a headache now, too. “I’m just, I’m right in the middle of doing something, and...”

Joel’s gone from mildly irritated to pissed off in about a half a second. “And you don’t give a fuck, basically.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Benji sighs. He’s sighing a lot lately.

A snort, this totally flippant noise, and then, “Whatever, Benj.”

Dial tone.

Well.

That went better than expected. Or, you know. Not at all.

Benji sighs, again, and flips his phone shut. When he looks out at the restaurant, Jacob’s still sitting at their table, building a half assed castle out of chop sticks and little packets of soy sauce.

Biting his lip, he looks down at his phone – call Joel back, apologize? – then back at Jacob – the only person he’s managed to keep on this side of not being pissed off – then down at his phone again.

He carefully sets his ringtone to ‘silent.’ It’s a start.

 

.

 

Jacob asks him if everything is okay as soon as he reaches the vicinity of their table.

“Oh, yeah.” Dropping back down onto his chair, Benji smiles and swings his legs back under the table, trying not to destroy the little stacks of soy sauce Jake has balanced on the pepper shaker. Whatever kind of chinese food needs pepper. “My brother, Joel, he’s just... he just had a kid like, a month ago, so he’s still in freaking out stage.”

Smiling and nodding his head, Jacob carefully balances one more packet of soy sauce, and then pulls out his cell phone to take a picture of his creation, for prosperity or something. Benji watches.

“I get it,” He says, carefully, speaking slowly as he presses the ‘capture’ button on his phone. “A buddy of mine,” He pauses to check the picture, make sure it’s not out of focus or too dark, before flipping his phone closed and slipping it back into his jacket pocket. “He just had a kid with his wife, he’s only twenty one so... yeah.”

He shakes the table leg with his foot, and Benji watches with mild amusement as the stack of soy and chop sticks fall to the table.

“He’s twenty eight and, well,” Benji shrugs. “Age doesn’t change much, I guess.”

Jacob nods and starts getting up from the table. “You’re right there.” Halfway up, he catches the waitress’ eye and waves his arm at her to get her full attention; Benji’s half convinced they’re going to dine and run so he starts to get up too. “Hey, Su, put it on the tab, alright?”

She nods and smiles at him, waving the dish rag she’s got in one hand, pointing them mostly towards the door. Because he doesn’t know what else to do, Benji manages a little wave and smile.

“You ready to go?” Jacob asks, pushing his chair back in, looking at Benji with these wide brown eyes and raised eyebrows. Benji nods and grabs his hat off the back of his chair, twitchy habit like his sunglasses, motions for Jacob to lead the way.

 

.

 

They walk along this deserted breakwater that Jacob says has been a favorite place of his since he was a teenager. Benji leaves his car downtown, outside of the chinese place, which he’s sure isn’t a good idea in retrospect, but it’s also the last thing he’s thinking about as they make their way along the water, both of them with their hands in their pant pockets, Benji freezing in his poorly executed winter wear.

“So,” Jacob glances across at him, but Benji doesn’t notice, he’s too busy looking at the lights reflecting on the water. It’s dark and endless and entirely terrifying. “Why’s your band in L.A. while you’re in fuckin’ ... here.”

Benji smiles a little and takes off his sunglasses, he can’t see shit with them on and if he falls off the edge, he’s pretty confident he’d suffer a heart attack from fear before even hitting the water. He folds the arm and hangs them on the V of his t-shirt. He’s got goosebumps.

“Because...” He trails off. He hadn’t even gotten this far himself yet. “I didn’t have anywhere else to be?”

Jacob laughs quietly and wedges his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket. “Now you’re the convincing one.”

“I don’t know,” Benji’s laughing all of a sudden, he doesn’t know why. He glances over at Jacob, his lip ring is all crooked and his jaw is covered in three days’ worth of stubble, but it’s fine. Everything’s great. “Seriously,” He shrugs. “I don’t have a real answer.”

Stopping to zip up the front of his jacket, Benji watches the silhouette of Jacob’s body, the bright lights behind him completely blanking his face out as Benji walks backwards, slowly, waiting for Jacob to catch up. Skinny legs, hips, stomach, stomach.

“It’s just, like...” He trails off to concentrate on not pinching his neck, then fixes the collar of his jacket as he hurries to catch up with Benji. “Why not Chicago. Or Hawaii. Or fuckin’, like, London or something?”

Benji twists back around when Jacob falls into step with him, self consciously tugging at the front of his shirt, fixing the hat on his head. 

“I’ve been to all those places,” He shrugs, squinting as he looks over. “And this was the last place I came.”

The corners of his mouth twitching up into little points, Jacob smiles and then smiles with teeth and then laughs, swinging one arm around Benji’s shoulders, and Benji’s so small and incomparable to Jacob, it’s sickening.

It’s just too bad he likes it.

 

.

 

_December_

 

Joel sends him this long email full of spelling mistakes and accidental caps lock as a way of apologizing and letting Benji know that, it’s okay, they’re both dicks to each other sometimes, but it’s all cool now, honest. Benji reads it through all the way, twice, because it’s kind of hard to follow the first time around, and then sends back a simple, honest: _I’m sorry too. Phone me when you can._

He hits send, and doesn’t think twice.

 

.

 

Three days later he’s Christmas shopping for Joel’s Jacob and maybe Nicole if he can find something decent, when he finds out that Sophie’s engaged to somebody else. 

It’s on the cover of US Weekly – Benji has no idea when she got to be a big enough celebrity to warrant the cover story on mediocre tabloid magazines, especially with girls like Britney Spears around, but apparently at some point it happened. She’s getting hitched to some American football star, big name if you know him, which is good for her. He thinks. This football guy is a better match than Benji ever would have been.

In the middle of paying for an overpriced outfit for the kid, Benji thinks about talking Joel into retrieving the engagement ring for him. But, by the time the cashier hands him his receipt and credit card, he realizes that... fuck it. He doesn’t really care.

In fact, the smile that he throws her over his shoulder on his way out? It’s maybe ninety nine percent real.

 

.

 

Okay, a hundred.

 

.

 

The next time he sees Jacob, he’s channel surfing with a bowl of popcorn in his lap and a diet coke on the coffee table. 

“—and you’re performing, we’re gonna talk about the new CD that’s out in stores, so that’s all comin’ up, as well as questions from you guys, so don’t go anywhere, but first we’re gonna check out one of your videos, right?”

_“Streetfight! You’re going to watch Streetfight right now.”_

_“Yeah! Here it is!”_

_“Wear goggles.”_

And he looks so different from the boy Benji saw in the restaurant when they were together. Knowing that this almost obnoxious, well groomed guy on-screen is the same person he walked along the break water with, he wonders if he was ever that transparent, back when he thought maybe this band thing could go on forever.

But something about Jacob is different, balanced. The way he wears his shoes, the careful style to his hair and the third button up the front of his jeans, maybe these are the things Benji was missing all along. Digging his hand around in the popcorn bowl, feeling around pretty carefully for what he decides are the best pieces (the ones that aren’t soggy with butter) he settles back and watches the show, whatever lame Canadian TRL rip off this is, and he. Well. He almost enjoys it.

_“My wildest fantasy involves eight feet of duct tape, half a carton of eggs, and a bag of paperclips.”_

_“And what are you gonna do with all those things?”_

_“Well that’s for me to know and... you to call me later. And maybe we can go for a beverage. Maybe we can go to Office Depot!”_

 

.

 

Benji hates Christmas parties, fact. Also fact: Benji gets roped into attending one every single year. This time around, for instance, not only does he have his mother and Josh on his case, but Joel starts nagging that he hasn’t seen him in two months, and, you haven’t even met the baby yet, Benj, just come down for two days – Sarah’s coming and everything.

So, long story short: today Benji is packing for a three day long trip to Los Angeles. 

The only thing Benji hates more than Christmas parties, is packing.

 

.

 

L.A. is the same every time Benji returns, the same touch down in the same concrete city. The complimentary drink they serve him is flat, too, which somehow just makes everything worse.

He gets a text from Jacob while he’s waiting for the one bag he had to check, it was like a half ounce over traveling weight or something completely ridiculous like that. His bags are the most expensive on the carousel and he’s the only one who doesn’t notice.

_just got back to van. busy this wkdn?_

Benji frowns and stares at the text for a while, until he remembers he’s supposed to be picking his bag up. He looks up just in time to see it disappearing into the scary tunnel thing, which he’s always been a bit freaked out by. Swearing, he almost drops his cell phone as he runs down the side of the carousel. He sticks his hand past the plastic flap things and snags the handle just in time. Lost luggage would so not be an asset to this particular trip.

At least he can start wearing his sunglasses again and not feel like a total douche.

He doesn’t text Jacob back until he’s outside waiting for a taxi, standing with one leg bent over his bag in case someone decides to go all sticky fingers on him and snatch it.

_im in la for 3 days. when im back?_

Once the text has been sent off he actually manages to wave a taxi down, some guy with a Mexican accent who assumes he’s taking Benji to Disneyland at first for whatever reason. The only place Benji currently hates more than Hollywood is Anaheim. 

“No, no, Glendale – here,” He hands him a shred of paper with Joel’s address, current location for the Madden congregation he’s sure is about to go down. “This one,” He taps the address, the only other thing on the paper is Jacob’s phone number (third copy) so he’s pretty sure it’s straight forward enough. “Yes?”

The driver nods and pulls away from the curb. It’s only when they get to the freeway that Benji settles back and relaxes, pulling the brim of his hat down low enough over his eyes that he can sleep.

 

.

 

_forsure. im here until after xmas so we can catch up then._

 

.

 

Joel bought this weird Spanish villa style home when he found out about the kid. It’s got something dumb like nine bathrooms and fourteen point five baths, which Benji thinks is a little over the top. Twelve bathrooms would do him fine.

He tips the cab driver enough and gets his argument together about why everyone’s an asshole for not offering to pick him up from the airport as he makes his way up the front drive, feeling like a total douche when he buzzes the intercom on the driveway, just standing there, chilling, with his little bag on wheels trailing behind him.

“What the hell?” Joel answers, laughing, static-y over the cheap system.

Benji frowns. “Thanks for picking me up, dickhead.”

“You didn’t ask,” Joel laughs, again, and the gates start to open.

Scowling, Benji adjusts the grip he’s got on his bags and starts up the driveway. He’s pretty sure that even the taxi driver is laughing at him.

 

.

 

He is.

 

.

Joel’s Jacob looks a lot like Benji, which kinda freaks him out at first. Really freaks him out at first. This tiny little ticking time bomb of Madden ears and green eyes, and maybe he looks like Nicole a little, but not as much as he does Joel – Benji. 

“He’s cute,” Benji concedes, holding him kind of awkwardly. It’s looking at him funny.

Laughing, Joel leans down and adjusts his grip a bit, holding Benji’s hands and directing them around, moving his thumb here, his pointer finger to the back of Jacob’s head. In one moment Joel is all of a sudden so instinctual, so natural, Benji wonders what happened to this person, and the guy who phoned him a month ago, ready to run just like certain other people had.

“Hey bitch,” Is the first thing Nicole says to him once she comes down from upstairs. She touches the back of Benji’s head and kisses his temple lightly, like she’s his mom too, and Joel looks at her like they’re – like they’re grownups.

Suddenly Benji feels so homesick he hands the kid off and goes upstairs to hover around the toilet, just in case.

The funniest part is, nothing happens. He’s just getting more dramatic in his old age. One year and three months away from thirty.

Holy fucking shit.

 

.

 

_god its weird that i have a nephew who looks just like me. we need to go get drunk when i get back._

 

.

 

Benji hangs around after dinner, his mom arrives just before the pizza does, and Sarah phones and says she’s not coming over until the morning because her girlfriend’s parents have to be picked up from the airport. Yeah, funny story, she’s a homo too, Benji has no idea what his parents were shooting for, but three out of four isn’t bad. 

“We’ll talk to you in the morning,” Joel tells her, watching Jacob roll around where he’s on a baby blanket under the tree. He’s staring up into the lights with these wide eyes that reflect everything, and Benji’s fascinated, terrified, from where he’s sitting on the couch with a root beer and his cell phone.

Robin’s beside herself, of course, she has been since she arrived and made a bee line straight for Nicole and the baby in her arms. She’s still taking pictures, blinding the kid with flashing lights and snapping her fingers to get his attention like he’s a puppy or model, both of which Benji regards at the same level.

He and Joel sit around together like old men ‘til way after Nicole and Robin totter off to bed, Robin following Nicole and the baby, mostly, and probably falling asleep once she got upstairs.

They watch the Christmas lights blinking on the tree, Joel in one arm chair, Benji still on the couch, and it hurts that there’s this glaring sadness in Joel’s face when they finally look at each other, but it’s the Christmas season, and it’s the feeling they’ve been working with for years.

Before Joel heads upstairs, he pauses beside Benji’s couch, hovering, and Benji watches his jean covered hips, these tiny hips that Benji’s felt and seen and touched and licked and sucked under every and all circumstance, and then Joel touches the top of his head, curves his palm over the bleached stubble on his head, and curls his fingers against Benji’s skull.

“See you in the morning,” He whispers, thumb nail scratching, before he turns around and heads up the stairs.

Benji watches him just to see the way his scratches at the back of his neck, like he’s got a twitch or something.

 

.

 

_i thought you were a recovering alcoholic._

 

.

 

Benji stops walking up the stairs to text back right away; fuck all those rules about waiting half an hour if it’s not a family member or best friend.

 

.

 

_i lied. i thought you were supposed to be a bad influence._

 

.

 

He creeps past Joel and Nicole’s bedroom door, careful not to step on any of the creaky spots on the floor, except when a terrifyingly loud squeak echoes through the hallway, he realizes that he has no idea where any of these loose floor boards are.

Instead of taking the slow and careful route, he throws caution to the wind and hops down the hallway, teeth clenched until he gets to his door, the second guestroom, the one right beside his mom’s.

Just as he closes the door behind him, his cell phone vibrates.

 

.

 

_im not. merry xmas._

 

.

 

Benji doesn’t know this, but it’s the sound of the creaky floor board that wake Joel up. It’s one of those sudden, jerky moments that almost sends him right off the side of the bed, and it wakes Nicole up too, but all she does is jab him in the shoulder and then turn over and fall back asleep.

Feeling frozen, Joel blinks at the ceiling for a few moments, counting the paces that Benji makes as he hurries down the hall. There’s even a little smile that starts across his face when the footsteps triple time and pretty soon he can see it in his head, Benji’s cheeks red and embarrassed that he might’ve woken somebody up as he hurries to his bedroom – the guest room, he means – and tries to keep the knob from squealing as it opens.

Benji’s always been kind of an overdramatic guy, though.

Yawning, Joel turns over, back to Nicole’s back, and watches the edge of Jacob’s crib until he falls asleep.

It doesn’t even take him all that long, this time.

 

.

 

_merry Christmas._

 

.

 

Sarah and her girlfriend, Jane, come around for breakfast the next morning. Or so Benji hears, as he slept right through it and didn’t even wake up when someone gave a courtesy knock on his door.

“Shit,” He grumbles, scrubbing at his face with both hands as he eyes the alarm clock on the bed side table. His watch and rings are sitting in front of the numbers, his phone beside that. 

A jaw cracking yawn hidden against the inside of his elbow and he stumbles out of bed, grabbing his hoodie from the footboard because Joel’s still cheap enough to scrimp on heating and it turns out it’s really cold between here and the bathroom.

By the time Benji heads downstairs to greet the masses, most of them have already left to go Christmas shopping. Which is fine, because it means he can pick through the breakfast leftovers alone.

He’s pretty sure it’s Jane who brought the donuts sitting in the middle of the table. He’s pretty sure he likes Jane, maybe more than Sarah does.

 

.

 

Benji leaves the Saturday after that. Nothing more, really, gives his mom a hug and a kiss, Nicole the same, a two armed hug for Joel, a mouth against the spot where his shoulder meets his throat, and a hand on the baby’s belly. Then he’s back in a taxi and on his way to the airport, nothing less.

When he lands, he phones Joel to let him know he’s arrived safely. And he has.

 

.

 

_Christmas Eve_

 

Jacob phones him around five thirty and says, “I don’t know where you live.”

“That’s probably cause I’ve never told you,” Benji replies without thinking, entirely caught up in trying to string his one rope of cheap LCD lights around the TV stand. He had enough Christmas cheer when he was in L.A., a strand of low functioning lights is all he needs to sustain the spirit right into January.

Laughing, and it sounds like Jacob’s in his car driving around, as he says, “It’d be pretty neat if you could tell me now. I kinda have something for you.”

“That sounds ominous,” Benji says, but tells him his address anyways.

 

.

 

So Benji spends a half an hour dinking around until Jacob shows up at his front door with a tin full of home made Christmas cookies.

“Wow,” Benji manages, accepting the tin as Jacob hands it to him with a wide grin on his face. Clearly he’s proud of himself. He’s also wearing the jean jacket again. “Thanks.”

Jacob sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his feet. “I ate a couple on the way here, but, you know. I also got lost thanks to your crappy directions, so.”

“You know it’s Christmas Eve, right?” Benji asks, already taking the lid off of the tin. They smell delicious and he’s maybe drooling. Just a little bit. Before he can even get his hand in, Jacob steals one of the angels with blue hair and cracks her head clean off. “Hey.”

Brushing the crumbs off of his jacket with one hand and eating with the other, Jacob looks at his shirt then at Benji. “Hey yourself. And yes I know it’s Christmas Eve.”

“I thought your family lived here – you can come in, you know – don’t people usually do the family thing Christmas Eve?” Benji steps to the side so Jacob can actually shuffle his way in, still working over his angel even as he pulls his toque off. A very Canadian thing, Benji has come to notice.

Jacob follows Benji through the living room through to the kitchen. “Kinda sorta. Tammy’s doing this volunteer thing at the church for their pageant thing or whatever. I’m not big on Jesus.”

“Tammy?” Benji doesn’t even mention how he’s got nineteen different disciples tattooed on different parts of his body. Not to mention all the biblical scrolls and the like. And the skeleton on the death wagon, which he still thinks is pretty cool.

Leaning against the counter, Jacob wipes his hand off on the hip of his jeans and watches as Benji fills the coffee maker. “Wife.”

“Right.” The cookies are the furthest thing in his mind at the moment. “Married.”

Jake eyes him carefully, “Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Benji spoons a couple rounds of the cheapest, most bitter coffee ground into the machine. It’s disgusting but it works the best, and he’s pretty sure Jacob’s not here for the taste, anyways. “What about your parents?”

Sucking off his front teeth, Jacob goes for another cookie. “At my sister’s. I can’t stand her boyfriend.”

“Of course.” Benji should be getting used to this by now.

Smiling, Jacob bites his gingerbread man in-between his teeth, delicately holding it there as he uses his hands to list out, “Then there’s my band, Chris, fucking his girlfriend probably, Tommy, parents,” He pauses to suck back some drool and actually take a bite out of his cookie before he rests it on the counter. “Dave, girlfriend – there’s a pattern here – then there’s my best friend, who’s a dick, because he decided to go to Whistler until the New Year and get drunk without me, and – ”

“I get it, I get it,” Benji laughs, turning the coffee maker power on. “Last resort, gotcha.”

Jacob picks the cookie up, and carefully breaks a leg off. “Nah,” He says, through this crooked smile. Benji looks at him. “I could be at the church.”

 

.

 

_January_

 

Everything on TV is a rerun so he spends his time trolling the internet, which is kinda cool, he’s getting pretty good at typing kind of, he’s even doing it with like eight fingers now. He sends everyone in his email these stupid forward letters cause he has nothing better to do the first week of January, this one he forwards to Joel explains the origin of Bloody Mary, and how if you don’t forward it to at least fifteen people in the next two hours, the next time you step on a crack, you’ll _actually_ break your back.

Benji wouldn’t have forwarded it, except. He’s just really superstitious. And accident prone. He doesn’t want a broken back. In fact, he’s in the middle of picking through his address book when his cell phone almost vibrates off the edge of the desk.

“Hello?” He hasn’t checked his caller ID before picking up in weeks.

Benji clicks around in his email. His mom’s a big follower of chain letters, too, which kinda pisses him off. He hates receiving the things. Joel’s sent him some more pictures of the new kid too.

“Is your fridge running?” Joel asks, then this really stupid bout of laughter.

Forcing back a smile, Benji sends him the cursed letter. “Joel,” He says, settling back in his chair. “That’s stupid.”

“No it’s not.” He’s still laughing like a little kid. “It’s funny.”

Benji smirks at his computer screen, he sees the reflection of his mouth in the curved glass.

Okay. Maybe it is a little, in a really lame way. But just a little.

 

.

 

Benji’s picking through a shelf full of dented soup cans when somebody covers his eyes up with their hands.

_Surprise._

“Guess who?” Jacob asks, the soles of his shoes squeaking against the laminate grocery store floor. A distinctly female voice laughs or giggles or whatever it is girls do, and it makes Benji’s stomach drop.

Benji lets go of the dented cream of mushroom soup -- much like the Adam Sandler movie, soup is actually half price when the can’s dented at this store -- and tries to open his eyes up against the press of Jacob’s hand. He gets an eye full of eye lash and a bunch full of overprotective tears in the process.

“Gotta be Joel,” Benji says, already trying not to laugh. A minute later Jacob’s got his arms wrapped around Benji’s torso from behind, his mouth right at Benji’s ear, laughing.

The girl is still laughing somewhere in the general vicinity of this aisle. 

“It’s me!” Jacob exclaims, squeezing a little harder and then taking a step back.

Benji feels so instantly dizzy it makes him sick.

He turns around with a can of soup in each hand and comes face to face with Jacob in all of his masculine grocery shopping glory – cart full of beer, assorted red meats, and breakfast cereals – and this chick who Benji assumes is Tammy, standing beside him in matching black skinny jeans and an American Apparel hoodie. Benji thinks it’s stupid a bunch of Canadians are wearing American Apparel.

“What’s going on?” Benji asks, laughing breathlessly, looking between the two of them. 

Jacob motions to his cart. “Going back on tour next week, so I’m preparing a massive banquet before I leave.”

“Of course,” Benji manages, looking at Tammy, smiling at her awkwardly.

She elbows Jake in the side and steps forward, extending her hand. It’s tiny and her fingernails are painted with black polish, the kind that looks expensive in a really contrived way. It suits her well.

“Nice to meet you,” She says, as Jacob scowls and rubs at where she elbowed just under his nipple. “I’m Tammy.”

Benji juggles his soup cans so he’s got two in one hand, and extends the other to shake Tammy’s. “Benji,” He smiles.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” She keeps smiling, so Benji does too.

He’s a half an awkward moment away from saying something like ‘only good things, I hope!’ when Jacob intervenes with an ‘okaaaay’ and knocks their hands away from each other, sending one of Benji’s soup cans rolling across the floor. 

“Fuck!” Jacob swears, trying to catch it. All he does it knock it half way to the floor and give it another foot or so of air.

Tammy starts laughing, leaning against their cart delicately, like it isn’t full of junk food and assorted gross things. Benji’s not a big fan of raw red meat, bad reaction once and five years of being a (kind of) vegetarian. He ate chicken twice. Three times. But in five years that’s not bad or anything.

“Sorry,” Jake hands him the soup back, “But now it’s double dented, so...”

Benji starts laughing, he can’t help it, and nods, taking it back from Jake. He looks up  
at Jake and Jake’s still smiling at him.

“Dude, it’s fine, it’s just soup,” He says, shrugging, tucking one under the arm for safe keeping. He should probably invest in a basket or a cart, but he doesn’t have any quarters on him, and it’s not like he’s going to hijack a cart or anything.

“Well,” Jacob pats the can in his hand again, like it’s got feelings. “Whatever. I was gonna phone you later, but, listen if you can come, we’re having a kick off party for the tour on Friday in Yaletown. I know you’re a no fun kind of guy, but if you wanna come, I can put your name on the list...”

Benji nods and runs his thumb along the edge of the dented can. It’s pretty dented.

“No, yeah, for sure, that would be cool.” He nods and looks at Tammy again, by accident this time, and forces another uncomfortable smile at her just cause they look each other in the eye. When he goes back to looking at Jacob, he’s still regarding him carefully, this blank wide open face as he stares and stares. “That would be fun,” Benji finally concedes.

Face breaking into a wide grin, Jacob touches Benji’s elbow and then claps him on the shoulder, a very touchy feely guy.

“Wicked,” He laughs, making his way back over to his shopping cart. Tammy’s already wandering off down the aisle, a very half assed wave over her shoulder. “I’ll see you then. I’ll text you the address.”

Benji offers a thumbs up, and it’s only once Jacob is in the next aisle over (Benji’s sure of this, he hears him run his cart into a promotional stack of Swiffer brooms) that he scowls at himself, literally slapping his forehead.

Who the fuck thumbs up anymore.

“You do,” Benji whispers to himself, sighing. “Apparently.”

 

.

 

Benji’s hanging around in his front hallway later that night, trying to rationalize not going out for a smoke when he realizes it.

He definitely wouldn’t be opposed to sucking Jacob off.

“Damn it,” He whispers to nobody in particular, as his fingers relax against the cigarette pack he’d been dinking around with for the better part of ten minutes. He stares at the blank white wall opposite him. He really should put some artwork or a mirror, there. 

This is unexpected.

 

.

 

Friday morning comes, but Benji thinks it’s Thursday for some reason until he turns on one of those early morning shows and they’re doing a weekly wrap up.

Of course Friday only means one thing.

Jacob’s bon voyage party.

“Fuck,” Benji says, again, already lighting a cigarette. 

The whole not getting smoke stuck in the couch fabric thing disappeared right around the minute Benji went back to chain smoking. At least this way he doesn’t run the risk of bumping into boys running around in gym shorts. Not unless he wants to, at least.

 

.

 

Benji hangs around his place until eight, which is when he locks his front door and heads down to his car, only to sit in the front seat and chain smoke another three cigarettes. Which is fine, he’s got like an hour and a half to kill before he wants to make an appearance.

It’s halfway there when he realizes he left his sunglasses on the dresser in his bedroom, which causes a mild panic attack to start bubbling away in the shallowest place in his chest. Lucky for him he gets stuck in traffic, which A, serves as a reason to not go back and B, give him an extra twenty minutes to chill the fuck out. 

He flips around Sirus the whole time he’s bumper to bumper with every other commuting scene club fuck in Vancouver, but finds nothing of value, so he switches to winding down his window and smoking the rest of the cigarettes he has on him. Which is fine until he runs out while the light is still red. 

“Fuck,” He swears, when his cell phone goes off. He digs it out of his front pocket but it’s Jacob so he doesn’t answer.

Which is cool. He thinks.

He’s pretty sure it’s cool.

 

.

 

Forty five minutes later and he’s over an hour late and stinking like a couple serious layers of cigarette smoke when he shows up. Lucky for him it’s just a dive bar, so the smoke reek is covered with the puke and cheap booze stink by the time he finds Jacob and his buddies hanging around near the back of the bar. They’ve rounded three ratty couches up and, at least when Benji initially walks over, they all seem to be very drunk and very happy to be playing a bastardized version of Charades.

“Crippin you’re like forty billion points behind,” Jacob is laughing, Benji catches him sprawled over one of the corners of a couch, a makeshift scoreboard set up in his lap. It looks like a beer box flattened and turned inside out. Lucky, maybe. 

The guy Jacob’s talking to, Benji wants to call him Chris, straightens up from where he was bent over one of the other guys in his underwear and a feather boa, and bitches, “Maybe if someone knew how to keep track of some lousy points, we’d be tied – ”

“Blah blah blah,” Jacob snickers, scratching out a bunch of numbers and penciling new ones in. Benji tries to stand there and not be awkward, but he’s also got manners so he’s not about to interrupt either.

It’s not like he’s just gonna reach for a beer and settle right in, or anything.

“Who the hell are you?” Benji realizes it’s him that (maybe) Chris is talking to, staring up from where he’s kneeling on the floor, crusty hair all sweaty and stuck to his forehead as he eyes Benji up and down.

Jacob looks up with the end of his pencil between his teeth, lips quickly stretching into a wide grin.

“It’s my buddy,” Jacob explains, tossing the scoreboard off the edge of the couch, swinging his legs off the side and standing up without much effort. He uses Chris’ shoulder to steady himself as he takes a few wobbly steps around the coffee table to round up on Benji.

Benji raises his eyebrows and manages an awkward, very half assed wave. Mainly just wiggling his fingers.

“What’s going on,” He asks to nobody in particular, catching Jacob around the waist when he comes at him, flinging his arms around Benji’s shoulders. Benji smiles at Chris over Jacob’s shoulder, but all he gets in return is a leveling stare.

So Chris is a bit of a bitch, too. Benji can deal with this.

“We’re hanging out,” Jake laughs, squeezing the back of Benji’s neck and then letting go to take a step away and look at Benji, right in the face, which he finds awkward to say the least. “I thought you weren’t gonna come. Tammy’s already left.”

Benji feels an awkward little something that almost feels like relief settle somewhere into his chest. It’s not a good feeling.

“I got lost,” He manages, hand suddenly on the back of his neck – with the sunglasses gone, he doesn’t have anything else to play with. 

Frowning, Jacob makes this noise like he’s sorry about something, maybe it’s just a drunk thing, and says, “I could’ve given you directions! You should have phoned me!”

“It’s, whatever, it’s fine,” Benji laughs, trying to play it off, as he shakes his head and kneads at the back of his neck with his hand, fingers digging into the tissue there. Jacob rolls his eyes and tugs Benji’s arm until they’re closing in on the couches and Chris looks about two teeth away from biting. “Hi,” He says, smiling awkwardly as Jacob gives him a push and he topples down into the cushion beside where Crippin is sitting.

Chris offers him a tight smile. “What’s up.”

“Nothing,” Benji’s breathless and starts reaching for his cigarettes. Looking over, he watches Jacob motion to the bartender for another round of beers before settling down into the couch opposite Benji.

He grins wide and lets out this little bark of maniacal laughter. 

“Yahtzee championship,” He exclaims, pulling out a few assorted pieces of game memorabilia from under the coffee table. Benji smiles and lights his cigarette.

It’s gonna be a long round.

 

.

 

The night is pretty uneventful, as far as nights like these go. Benji wins Yahtzee twice, even though his greatest accomplishment is getting Chris to warm up to him, and all it takes is a couple of bummed cigarettes. By the time they leave the bar he’s got Jacob hanging off one shoulder and Chris on the other. 

Jacob staggers off to piss down the gutter while Benji tries to remember where he parked his car, leaving Chris breathing his booze breath all down the collar of Benji’s shirt, glassy eyed and cross eyed and everything.

“You’re a good guy, I can tell,” He says, after a minute of silence that has Benji tinkering around with his key ring, trying to single out his car alarm button. Crippin exhales cigarette smoke into Benji’s face and almost drops the butt down his shirt. “I can tell.”

Making a face, Benji nods and glances back over his shoulder. Jacob’s got one hand balancing the rest of his body against a brick building.

“I’m a good guy,” He agrees, mostly for the sake of just agreeing with a drunk. “Well, sometimes I’m a good guy.”

Crippin lets go of Benji’s shoulder and staggers to the side a few feet to do up his jacket. Benji watches him just in case he passes out or throws up or whatever drunk people are doing nowadays.

“You gotta promise me something,” This threat comes with a pointed finger, even, wobbling around in the air as Chris steadies himself.

Benji sets the alarm on his car off, the sharp _woop woop_ echoes throughout the sort of empty street. “Maybe. Tell me what it is first.”

Sucking off the last bit of his cigarette, Chris throws the butt over his shoulder and extends his arm out, like he’s about to divulge Benji in some terrific secret that only the two of them will know about.

“Don’t hurt him,” He stage whispers, fingers digging in right at the tender spot in Benji’s neck.

Benji tries to pull back, eyebrows raised, “What – ”

“Hey, don’t be, fuck you, I’m just saying,” They tussle for a minute until Benji gives in and lets Chris wrap him back up. “He’s told me about you, lots of things about the... things, and, he’s my buddy. You fuck him...”

Licking his lips, Benji glances over his shoulder at Jacob, now leaning against the building with his entire body, probably most likely already out or mostly on his way to being there. Benji turns back to Crippin, they’re so close Benji can see the gold flecks in his eyes. Drunken gold flecks, but endearing all the same.

“He’s married,” Benji reasons, already itching for a cigarette. Chris had his last. “And we don’t...”

Chris finally loosens the grip he’s got around Benji’s neck. “That’s what I mean, Tammy’s great, I mean, she’s great, but – it’s bullshit, Benj, can I call you Benj?”

“—No—”

“It’s bullshit, Benj, she knows stuff and they just...” Crippin leans in close again; Benji thinks about re-arming his car just in case. His CD collection is in there and he’s not in the mood to chase down a robber. “They went to preschool together.”

Benji licks his lips again, it’s getting cold enough to warrant mittens. Gloves.

“Look,” Benji pushes him back and steps away, down into the gutter beside his car. “You’re drunk, clearly drunk, go home and sleep and puke your guts out in the morning. And have a good tour,” Benji offers Jacob one more look. He’s mostly crumbled into the side of the building, one outstretched arm keeping him up right. Benji reaches for his car door handle. “I’ll see you later.”

Crippin scowls at him again and leans up against a newspaper stand. “Yeah, well. Next time? No beginners luck in Yahtzee.” He’s one hundred percent serious. Maybe a hundred and fifty.

Laughing, he can’t help it, Benji nods and rests one arm against the top of his car, standing between the open door and his seat. “I promise. Do you need me to call you a cab?”

Chris makes a noise halfway between offended and ‘no thanks’, waving his arm as he spins around to backtrack to where Jacob is still wavering against the building.

Benji watches them for a minute, the way they wrap their arms around each others shoulders to toddle off down the sidewalk, watches them until they’re in the next block and turning so Benji can’t see them laughing, joking, enjoying themselves.

He watches them until a homeless guy asks him for change, and that’s when he drops down into his car and locks all his doors. He doesn’t even sit and let the engine warm up so his heat will kick in; he goes straight home.

 

.

 

_February_

 

The thing Benji hates the most about Valentine’s Day is the fact that every daytime talk show has a special about it, how to do this or that and why you should and what might happen if you don’t. Even that douche who wrote that book about not being into chicks is probably banging somebody come dinner time.

On the other hand, it gives him a fantastic opportunity to listen to all the crappy emo junk Joel used to live by and feel sorry for a reason.

Which he’s not into. At all.

Speaking of the little bastard, Joel actually calls him Valentine’s morning, and he sounds so genuinely happy that Benji can’t work up enough nerve to reminisce about the Valentine’s Day they spent in Germany that one year, or even last year, when they’d had that quickie backstage in fucking, where was it? Ohio or something. Some place from that musical. Oklahoma. Benji remembers he’d been making jokes about it the whole time they were there.

“Well baby,” He finally says, staring down the take out menu for some local pizza place Benji has recently become addicted to. “Looks like it’s just you and me.”

 

.

 

Except it’s more like, just Benji, the cheese & pineapple pizza that arrives twenty minutes later, and all that junk Crippin filled his head with before they fucked off on tour last month.

Which wouldn’t be the worst combination ever, exactly, like Benji would be able to appreciate it, even, except for the whole Tammy thing. The wife thing. The significant other, tax deduction, engagement ring bullshit that Benji was almost roped into this time last year.

He’s been texting Jacob a little. A lot. Just lately, though. It’s kinda turned into their thing. Which is disconcerting.

So, revision: Benji’s got a piece of pizza hanging out of his mouth as he thinks about this Tammy chick, who is maybe the most perfect girl he’s ever laid eyes on, a refined version of his Original Riot Girl, and the way she’s banging the guy Benji wouldn’t mind blowing as he texts him. On the other hand, he pizza is pretty delicious, though, so there’s that.

_this paul potts guy was on oprah today. i maybe got a little teary eyed. hes like that miserble guy you make fun of at the bar while your drinking w all youre buddies, but he semmed like a real chap. a good guy. i misted a little._

Benji smirks and stretches out over the couch, the pizza box open on the coffee table beside him. He’s a retreating pop star, he can totally do the carbs thing now. Cause he didn’t before, or anything.

_You misted a little? Don’t worry, I wont tell anyone_

The little animation of the piece of mail flying out of the mail box, green wings and everything, is oddly satisfying on nights like tonight.

Benji grabs another piece of pizza and rests his cell on the coffee table.

 

.

 

He gets Joel to U-Haul the rest of his crap that was hanging around in L.A. a couple of days later. Benji doesn’t do much with the truck full of boxes arrive other than shove them in the damp crawl space underneath his living room, but it feels better to know that there isn’t anything left down there that he doesn’t have up here.

When that particular little train of thought goes rushing through his mind, it’s all he can do to not throw up all over his kitchen counter and latest edition of The National.

But he gets through the moment after a couple of deep breaths: it’s not like he’s ever gonna not need Joel.

Right?

 

.

 

Jacob’s back in town on the 24th for a couple days off before they kick off another new leg, which Benji remembers pretty fondly, the idea of finally being finished just completely blowing up in your face when you realized you had another nine months of the same schedule to deal with.

At least his memories aren’t all bitter and scowly. He’s getting there, slowly.

“You know you’ve got three separate Vancouver shows booked,” Benji grins at Jacob the day after ha arrives, over their lunch of hamburgers and milkshakes at this mom and pop operation on Granville. “And I plan on attending every one of them.”

Laughing and shaking his head and generally denying all the things Benji earlier confirmed on ticketmaster.ca, Jacob wolfs down the second half of his first hamburger, and settles back in his chair with a satisfied moan.

“That is what I’ve been missing,” He sighs, both hands over his flat belly. “Jesus Christ, yes.”

Snickering, Benji forces the last two bites of his into his mouth, making sure his coke is ready for immediate follow up. The after taste of pickles is maybe the most disgusting thing ever, but as a chaser to mustard, it works fantastically.

“So Joel sent me down the rest of my crap,” Benji says, for conversation’s sake as he crushes his napkin into a decent mess and tosses it onto his plate full of half bitten fries and globs of ketchup. Jacob looks up like he’s interested and then motions for the waitress over the top of Benji’s head. Benji leans back in his chair and stretches his legs out under the table. “I’m now officially a Vancouverite.”

Jacob laughs and, just as the waitress comes up to their table in her black skirt and little pad, says, “That’s so lame, dude.”

‘Lame, dude,’ Benji mouths over the table, picking up his napkin just to chuck it in Jacob’s general direction. Being that they’re outside and the wind is not working in his general favor, it doesn’t really go anywhere, but it was the idea that counted. Jacob appreciates it at least.

“I’m gonna get another one of these bad boys,” Jacob tells the waitress, motioning to his plate. There is literally nothing left.

She giggles and leans down to collect their plates and Benji’s empty glass. “Refill?”

“Sure, yeah, please,” Benji nods, eyeing the way she’s eyeing Jacob as she straightens up.

After regarding them both with a flirty smile and, “be right back,” she disappears back into the side doors of the restaurant.

“Okay,” Jacob flexes all of his fingers against the table top and stretches his legs out too, until the toes of his shoes are bumping against Benji’s ankles and Benji’s trying to fold his legs up under the back of his chair. “So you’ve got all these hot chicks throwing you eyes like tomorrow, and I haven’t witnessed actual proof of you banging any of them. Reason.”

Benji feels the very edges of his cheekbones heat up a bit. He rolls his eyes and wishes that dumb waitress hadn’t of taken his glass, at least then he’d have something to mess around with. An ice cube to accidentally choke on.

Just kidding. He’s an adult, full grown. He can totally deal with this.

“I was engaged,” He says defensively, instead of, oh. Just about anything else. “Broke it off just before Christmas.”

Jacob rolls his eyes and starts twisting the wedding band around on his finger. It’s distracting. “Bullshit.”

“I’m not,” Benji licks his lips and pats around on his chest pockets for his cigarettes. It’s an outdoor patio, there’s a reason why he requests them in the middle of winter. “I proposed to her the Christmas before that.”

Lips curling up into a half grin, Jacob widens his eyes. “You’re so _defensive_.”

“I am not – ” Benji cuts himself off. Damnit. “I’m just, like, there’s a reason why – ”

Jacob shakes his head and wraps his fingers around the top half of his water glass, twisting it around like he’s debating on picking it up.

“I’m just dicking with you,” He tells him, but it’s quietly, Benji knows that tone. Jacob stares harder at him over the table, which is only fuel for the way Benji’s already lighting up on a cigarette now. “Benji, c’mon. I know how, you know.”

For the first time in his life Benji actually gets a case of the perfect timing, as it’s right about now when the waitress comes back with his diet coke, refilled and freshly strawed. Benji smiles up at her.

“Your burger’ll be along in a couple,” She tells Jacob, setting the drink in front of Benji. “And, sir,” She turns to look down at Benji, one hand on her hip. “New by-laws, no smoking on outdoor patios. There’s a spot right across the street, though.” She even dislodges one hand from her waist to extend and point across the very busy street, to a bus stop. Where Benji assumes it’s also illegal to smoke.

What a fucking country.

“Sorry,” He mutters, taking it out of his mouth, reaching across the table to drop it right into Jacob’s water glass. Jacob watches the mostly still fresh cigarette disappear under his hand, the corners of his mouth twitching up into an appreciative smile.

The waitress leaves, and Benji gets the feeling that he’ll continue to be monitored. At least he got the one puff in before they shut him down.

“Anyway,” Jacob clears his throat and reaches to dump his glass of water over the edge of the patio. Benji sets to work on his coke, he feels like he should’ve ordered something extra. Maybe some more fries. “I’ll get your name on the guest list for all three shows, if you’re actually serious about wanting to come.”

Despite the fact that he sounds like a petulant child even to himself when he says it, Benji takes a sip of his coke and then frowns, staring across the table at Jacob, carefully watching him back.

“Of course I want to come,” He scowls. 

Jacob only grins wider at him, which is uncomfortable, kind of.

(Kind of.)

 

.

 

Benji’s kinda new to this whole Facebook revolution, however, he does know it’s good for two things. Okay, really only one: stalking people that you don’t know about in real life to meddle with.

Tammy Hoggard, he types into the little people search box. An elaborate listing of girls comes up, but Benji only has to scroll through a couple profiles until he finds the right Tammy. She’s in the Vancouver BC network, and hey, what a coincidence, so is he. 

Fifteen minutes later, and his worst fears are confirmed: she watches cooler movies than Benji does, has a ‘favorite books’ list longer than all the books Benji’s read since high school, and her personal quote is from what might be one of the best Family Guy episodes ever. She’s even a member of some hate group one of Jacob’s fans started.

Basically, she’s cooler, smarter, sexier, and generally better than Benji is. He’s pretty sure that if they went one on one at Guitar Hero, she’d beat him at that, too.

So instead of doing anything productive, Benji spends his afternoon filling his profile with fake information. He uses a list of the greatest movies of all time as released by AFI to complete his favorite movies, some banned library book list for his favorite books, and under music he gets a bit panic-y (what do the kids listen to these days?) so he just types ‘whatever sounds good.’

Maybe he’s pretty good at this fake online profile thing; by dinner, 45 people want to be his friend.

 

.

 

The next day he’s meeting Jacob again for lunch, mainly because outside of his band Jacob doesn’t have any other friends, and Benji still hasn’t gotten around to the whole ‘meeting new people’ thing. And also, Benji’s pretty sure that the whole Jacob not knowing anybody else thing is crap, just something he says to make Benji feel better about the fact that generally they’re texting each other fifteen times a day.

“Lookit my finger,” Is the first thing Jacob says to him, when they’re still a good three feet apart on the sidewalk. Benji frowns because it’s super cold outside and checks his car door to make sure it’s locked before glancing over in the direction of Jacob’s voice. He’s walking towards him with one arm stretched out, pointer finger stuck out at a funny angle.

Benji makes a face. “What the hell did you do?”

“I broke it!” Jacob sounds kind of delighted. “I was making shelves last night and then Crippin came over for some drinks, right, so that’s cool, but then we decided to continue building the shelves while wasted.” He pauses and wiggles his finger around, it’s got a big gash going along the side and the bottom knuckle is still swollen. “We were pretty wasted.”

Laughing despite the fact that getting drunk and breaking things hasn’t been cool since he was 24 (okay, 26), Benji wipes his nose on the back of his hand – cold weather has always made his nose run, he’s also pretty confident Jacob doesn’t care – and smiles. 

“So what, you bashed it with a hammer?”

Jacob frowns. “Nah, we were jousting with some two by fours. It was pretty sweet.”

“Is that the reason Chris sent me a picture of his black eye at four this morning?” Benji laughs, already rummaging around in his pocket to fish out his cell to show Jacob the offending photo. It was pretty in focus, for a drunk person. 

Walking alongside Benji down the sidewalk, Jake shakes his head and drops his hand back down to his side. “Nah, that’s from when I pushed him off the couch and he fell into the DVD rack.”

One of those sudden, awkward HA HA HA laughs just comes out of nowhere, and Benji doesn’t even notice it when Jacob looks at him sideways, this satisfied grin across his face.

Little does Benji know: Jacob has been trying to get through that last wall for weeks. 

 

.

 

Joel sends him some plane tickets to come down to L.A. for their birthday in a couple weeks, which is weird because Benji’s pretty sure it was only November yesterday. 

Regardless, he adds that envelope to the little stock pile of tickets he’s been accumulating for things: the three Hedley shows, the parking ticket from when that bitch attendant caught him in a handicapped stall. Like someone in a wheelchair would need to run into Home Depot. Benji wouldn’t have even been there for that long if he hadn’t had to use his cell to show the ugly teenager behind the counter the number for the bolt and latch Jacob needed.

“Anyways,” Joel is telling him; Benji can hear the baby gurgling somewhere against Joel’s general chest region. “Nicole’s parents are coming the last week of March, so you can either change your trip to arrive three days earlier and leave before he gets here, or you can suck it up and be a grown man and shake his hand.”

Yeah Benji’s not the biggest Lionel Richie fan ever. 

“When did you make it for?” Benji doesn’t try and reach for the envelope himself to see. “Cause I can always chill in the pool house while he’s generally being a creep around you guys.”

Joel snorts. “Benj you’re not coming all the way here to be some lurker.”

“I’ll come three days early,” Benji decides without much consideration, as he settles down into his living room couch. He got it on-sale at Dodd’s furniture, this weird Arabian guy who generally has a pretty strong cult following in these parts. It’s comfortable, though, and Benji’s only spilled something on it twice.

Laughing again, Joel moves the kid around and answers whatever Nicole’s saying in the background with a, “No it was the blue one. I mean black.”

Benji’s quiet for a minute, almost a minute at least, it feels like a minute, before he breathes in and says, “I knew you’d stick to the good father thing, Joel.”

There’s this quiet moment between them before Joel breathes in and sounds just like Benji did the minute before. 

“Thanks,” He says, quietly, softly, like if he speaks any louder someone will find out the truth.

 

. 

 

Benji turns up at the venue Hedley are playing around 7:30, which is a bad idea in retrospect, because walking through a crowd of girls who were most likely his fans three years ago is a) not good for the confidence and, b) generally not something Benji ever wants to do again. One hand tugging the front of his hoodie further down over his face, he sneaks between a couple of security guards and hovers around the ticket takers until one of them actually offers him a half interested expression.

“Hi,” He offers the girls sitting behind the ticket desk his best shit eating smile. He feels like such an accidental douche. “I’m here to pick up a pass?”

 

.

 

Funnily enough, this is the first time Benji has ever seen them perform live. He sits at the side of the stage through the ninety minute set and alternates between pretending to check his texts, pretending not to be as enamored with Jacob as the thirteen year old in the front row, oh, and also, pretending not to watch Tammy watching Jacob whenever the previous two activities aren’t in session.

Overall, it’s a successful night.

 

.

 

and then they’re kissing, not even straight couple movie kissing, like full on porno making out, maybe even gay porno and –

Wait, wait, wait --

Back up.

 

.

 

So the band has an after party of sorts at Tommy’s girlfriend’s house, which is kinda stupid because this particular show turns out to be on a Wednesday night, and maybe this is just a thing of the past and Benji just isn’t hip to the new slang, but they’ve got two more shows coming up – one which just so happens to fall on a Friday.

Which is one of two nights Benji always considered as party nights.

But alas, it is currently very much a Wednesday night, and he is currently trying to look very busy by juggling his Pepsi and cell phone with no new messages in his very empty inbox. Cautiously, he sits there, and goes through all of the old messages in his saved box.

That’s how banging Hedley’s Wednesday night after parties are.

Dave comes up to him twenty minutes after he started contemplating about switching to diet Pepsi – what if he ever wants to do a comeback tour? -- and sits down on the stool next to him, at the bar, where he’s drinking sugary soda. That’s probably going straight to his hips. Or his chin. Chins.

“What’s up buddy,” Dave calls people buddy when he’s partially drunk.

Flipping his cell closed, Benji shakes his head. “Not much. Why?”

“My other buddy Jakes is lookin’ for you,” He explains, slurring very little. He even manages a careful sip of beer. “He got lost in the bathrooms, though.” Without even pausing for Benji to say something, he leans in and grabs Benji’s shoulder. “Shhh,” He slurs, pressing his finger to his lips, getting spit everywhere. “He’s planning a surprise.”

Stomach flip flopping, Benji smirks and raises one eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What kind of surprise?”

“If I told you, you’d know,” Dave laughs, pushing away. He’s very drunk, in a very Dave way. “You know?”

Smiling, Benji nods and gets down from his stool. People like Dave aren’t good for his complexion. Not when they’re drunk, anyway.

“I’ll see ya round, man, I think I’m gonna get outta here.” He even leaves his half empty drink on the bar. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Benji manages to get away before Dave can say something, anything else.

.

 

In fact, Benji has almost fully made it outside when he’s awkwardly intercepted by a few short ‘psst!’ noises.

Frowning, Benji half turns around, and wearily eyes the mostly empty hallway. It’s brick and dark and kinda reminds him of the house he used to own in Los Angeles.

He scans from one side of the hallway to the other. Nothing, except for a few poorly groomed fake trees, so he presses his hand against the door and goes to push himself through to the outside.

“Psst!” And then someone falls out of a doorway about halfway down the room.

Okay, not even someone. A very clearly, blatantly obviously drunk, Jacob.

Benji makes a noise that he amounts to ‘oh for fuck sake, Jesus’ and goes to stoop down, but before he can do anything Jacob rears up, and smashes Benji’s nose with the back of his head.

This time he definitely screeches “fuck” like a little thirteen year old girl saying it for the first time, as one hand flies to cup his nose and mouth and the other reaches out to steady the rest of him. He can already taste the blood.

Jacob staggers backwards with a hand on the back of his head and they look at each other wide-eyed for a second, both too stunned to say anything.

“I’m bleeding,” Benji finally manages, snorting back a mouthful of blood, making a face before he decides to use the sleeve of his jacket.

He’s been looking for an excuse to get rid of it, anyways. Now he’ll have to. Jacob stupidly nods and says, still slurring a bit, “I’m not a nurse.”

“No shit.” Benji frowns and starts over to the wall. He’s starting to get light headed from the excitement. Or maybe from the blood loss.

Jacob trails after him with a hand still on the back of his head as Benji leans against the wall and slides down it, using his shoulder as a buffer as he drops to the ground.

“I didn’t break it?” 

Suddenly Benji is very aware of Jacob standing mouth to dick level over him. He glances at the zipper in Jacob’s pants once (one time too many) and pulls the sleeve away from his nose, looks at the damage staining the fabric, then up at the light. He tries to inhale through his nose but only gets more blood, a bit thicker, starting to clot.

“No.” Benji frowns and tilts his head back against the wall. Closes his eyes. “I’m fine.”

Jacob crouches down over him, his knees sticking out at odd angles, almost bumping against the wall Benji’s leaned himself into.

“Sorry.” Suddenly he seems about twice as sober and maybe even a little older than Benji remembers him. “This is my thing.”

Laughing shortly and then immediately regretting it, Benji pinches the bridge of his nose and asks, “Breaking people’s noses?”

“Fucking things up.” Jacob’s bottom lip is all frowny and his eyes look worried. It’s freaking Benji out, quite frankly. Jacob sighs. It’s also freaking Benji out that Jacob seems genuinely concerned about him. “Shit like this is what I do best,” He whispers, then reaches up, gently resting the curve of his thumb against the side of Benji’s nose. Benji flinches, it’s hot and swollen already, but Jacob looks him right in the eye and he’s still then, and if Jacob wanted to nostril fuck him Benji’s pretty sure he’d agree to it.

He presses lightly in a few places with his thumb, then announces quietly, “Really swollen.”

“Dave said you had a surprise for me,” Benji blurts out helplessly stupidly. He’s an awkward kinda fella, that Benji Madden. “If this was it, no offense, but that’s a terrible thing to give.”

Jacob smiles and rolls on his feet a bit, redistributing his weight as he reaches forward and rests his hand against the flat of Benji’s shoulder.

“This wasn’t it,” He whispers, and Benji watches a couple of girls and a guy leaving over Jacob’s left shoulder. “But my original plan was a lot better when I was stupid and drunk.”

Snorting again, lightly at least this time, Benji shakes his head and tries to rock forward to give himself some help in getting up, but then Jacob’s hand goes from his shoulder and his fingers wrap around the top half of Benji’s arm, as much as Jacob can get at least, and then there’s this thick as molasses moment where they just look at each other while Benji’s covered in blood and Jacob’s playing the sympathy card and then they’re kissing, full on kissing, Jacob’s leaning down and Benji’s still struggling with struggling to get up.

Jacob falls forward and Benji hears the palm of his hand hit the wall right behind his head, fingernails scratching against the cheap paneling as he leans in and widens his stance to get closer, lower. Benji, suddenly desperate even though he’d been assuming his game had been played pretty nicely up until this point, takes Jacob by the back of his head, thumb right over his ear, and holds steady.

 

.

 

Tammy doesn’t walk in and catch them making out like two high school football players behind the bleachers. The fire alarms don’t go off and cause a panic – Benji’s phone doesn’t even ring with some dramatic call from Joel.

No, it’s Benji awkwardly interrupting their pretty decent up until now make out session by saying, “Fuck, my nose is bleeding again,” that does it.

Laughing, Jacob nods and pulls away, knees wobbling as he swings to his feet like a fucking yoga guru or something and then holds his hand out to Benji to help him up as well.

Feeling like an old man, Benji accepts the help, and gets up with one hand pinching the bridge of his nose. For some reason, blood isn’t as cool as it was when he was a raging eighteen year old.

They shuffle down the hall side by side, Benji sniffling and wiping his nose on the back of his hand like a mistreated toddler as Jacob holds the door open for him, this little smile on his face like he knows something.


End file.
